Chosen for a Purpose - Sermon for Easter 5A (1 Peter 2:2-10)
Perhaps you can remember picking teams for a PE class or some other athletic event. No one wants to be the last person chosen. It’s not a good feeling. However, it’s a different story if you’re among the first picks. Perhaps you watched or paid attention to last week’s NFL draft. The Lions took Right Tackle Blake Miller from Clemson with its first pick, but the first overall pick was quarterback Fernando Mendoza, formerly of the Indiana Hoosiers. While it is a great honor to be the first pick, it does come with certain risks. That’s because the team with the first pick had the worst record in the league the year before. So, sometimes it’s better to be drafted near the end of the first round, so you can go to a good team. Then there’s the final pick of the draft. They call this person “Mr. Irrelevant” because everyone assumes he won’t make it in the NFL. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Sometimes Mr. Irrelevant can go on to be a star, as is the case with the 49ers quarterback, Brock Purdy. So, whether you’re the first pick in the draft or the last draft pick, as long as you get chosen, the rest is up to you! At least that’s the way it goes in the NFL and in PE classes!
This morning we’ve heard a word from 1 Peter. Whether or not the apostle Peter wrote this letter, the author wants us to know that even when we suffer persecution or exile, we’re still members of God’s chosen people who have been chosen for a purpose.
Peter begins this letter, which he writes to exiles living in what is today Turkey or Asia Minor, by letting his readers know that God the Father chose them and sanctified them by the Holy Spirit, so they could be obedient to Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:1-2). He tells them that even though they live in exile, they still have a purpose. That’s because, having heard the good news of Jesus Christ, they’ve been born anew of imperishable seed “through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Pet 1:22-23). Because they are “newborn infants” spiritually, they “long for the pure spiritual milk” that will enable them to grow into salvation. What that means is that they have “tasted that the Lord is good.”
While this is good news, we might want to go back to verse one of chapter 2, which the lectionary omits. In that verse, Peter tells the readers to “rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander” (1 Pet. 2:1). I’m not sure why the lectionary omits this verse, but it reminds us that Peter might have been concerned about their witness as newborn believers. After all, it’s easy to fall back into old habits. He wanted them to know that the way they presented themselves to the world, as followers of Jesus, was important.
Keeping with Peter’s focus on what it means to be chosen by God for a purpose, he switches metaphors from calling his readers newborn infants seeking spiritual milk to focusing on their identity as living stones, which God uses to build a spiritual house or temple. Peter tells his readers that Jesus is the initial living stone or cornerstone, which mortals rejected but God chose to use to lay the foundation of the spiritual house. When Peter speaks of this spiritual house or temple, he’s speaking of the church. In other words, the church is composed of God’s chosen people, who as living stones, are the building blocks for the spiritual house built on the foundation, which is Jesus Christ.
Peter then switches metaphors, telling the people that God has chosen them to serve as holy priests who “offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” While Peter doesn’t define what these spiritual sacrifices look like, if we continue reading through the letter, it is clear that Peter is concerned about his readers' obedience to the ways of God so that they, and we, might bear witness to God’s glory.
As I pointed out earlier, Peter writes this letter to a community that was experiencing exile because they had decided to follow Jesus. Whether his audience was composed of Jewish or Gentile converts, by choosing to follow Jesus, they likely had to separate themselves from their previous communities. They may have also experienced suffering, including persecution. Nevertheless, they could take comfort in knowing that because God had chosen them to be members of God’s people, they had a new identity and purpose. They may have been exiled from their former communities, but now they belonged to a new community where everyone belonged, and no one was irrelevant.
So, Peter wants us to know that whether you are the first living stone chosen or the last, you play an essential role in the formation of this spiritual house that is the church of Jesus Christ. Remember also that, as Peter points out, drawing from Psalm 118, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Ps. 118:22; 1 Pet 2:7).
Peter reinforces this message about what it means to be chosen by God by closing our reading with a riff on the names the prophet Hosea gave to his children. Although parents, especially celebrity parents, sometimes give their children rather odd names, the names Hosea gave his children weren’t just odd, they were highly inappropriate. Who in their right mind would name their daughter “No Mercy?” Or, their son “Not My People?” Nevertheless, these are the names Hosea gave to his children who were born from his marriage to a prostitute named Gomer. He chose these names as a sign of God’s judgment on Israel. Fortunately, Hosea later changed the names of these two children to serve as a prophetic sign of God’s compassion, mercy, and inclusion. As we see here in 1 Peter, Hosea changed his daughter’s name from “No Mercy” to “Mercy,” and his son, “Not My People,” became “You Are My People” (Hos. 1-2). Although I don’t recommend following Hosea’s example when it comes to naming children, Peter’s reference to Hosea’s efforts at using his children as prophetic expressions speaks to the question of identity. So, according to Peter, when God chooses us, God gives us a new name or identity. In God’s mercy, we move from being “Not My People” to “You Are My People.”
The name changes we find in Hosea aren’t unique. When we read Scripture, we find that God often gives us new names to reflect new realities. For example, the childless Abram and Sarai became Abraham and Sarah after Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Simon became Peter after he proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, and Saul became Paul on the road to Damascus. In this case, Peter lets us know that since God is building us, as living stones, into a spiritual house built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, we have a new identity, which is “You Are My People.”
We often read scripture in individualistic terms, which is a product of our Western Enlightenment tradition. But the people who wrote the Bible often thought in more communal terms. So, God dealt with Israel not as a collection of individuals, but as a community. Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and the other writers primarily addressed communities. Although these communities involved individuals, who were to use Peter’s term, living stones, these individuals were members of a community called together for a purpose. After all, the living stones Peter speaks of were designed to fit together to form a spiritual house. That means we are part of something that is bigger than us.
We see this play out in Paul’s letters, especially in 1 Corinthians 12 to 14. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul described the church as the body of Christ. According to Paul, each person or member of this body is equipped with spiritual gifts, which enable them to join with other members of the body of Christ in serving the common good. So, when we join together as the one body of Christ, we bring to the body our gifts and abilities and edify each other and bring glory to God our creator (1 Cor. 12).
Both Peter and Paul addressed communities, inviting them to appropriately represent Jesus to the world through their behavior. That’s why Paul emphasizes the importance of love, and Peter tells his readers to “abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul,” and to “conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that though they may malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge” (1 Peter 2:11-12). Since communities are composed of people, like you and me, Peter wants us to know that because God has chosen us to be living stones and holy priests, we are precious in the sight of God.
As Peter reminds us, we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” Therefore, no matter who we are, we belong to God’s family, even if it is by adoption. Because God has given us this new identity in Christ, we can “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pulpit Supply
First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Troy, Michigan
Easter 5A
May 3, 2026
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